The Tony Administration Committee, meeting Thursday for the second time this season to mull eligibility requests, rule changes and the like, made two adjustments that will effect the awards, beginning this season.

If there are at least seven eligible candidates for nomination in either the Best Direction of a Play or Best Direction of a Musical categories, the committee announced, the number of nominees in the respective category will increase from four to five. And if there are at least seven eligible candidates for nomination in the Best Choreography category, the number of nominees in that category will also increase from four to five.

As for actors, the change made is that in the event of a two-way or three-way tie for the last slot of nominations in any of the eight established Best Performance categories, both or all three of the tied actors or actresses will be eligible for a nomination in his or her respective category.

April 23 is the last day shows can open to be eligible for Tony Awards for the 2014-2015 season. The nominations will be announced on Tuesday morning, April 28. The Tony Awards ceremony will be telecast live by CBS-TV on Sunday June 7 from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m

I do find it interesting they chose 7 to be the magic number. In a year that had just the minimum, then over half of the seasons crop would be Tony nominees. I wonder what made them pick that instead of 9, like the top categories. Anyway, it looks like five nominees will become the new norm for Director and Chroeography. Perhaps we could find ourselves in another year like 1995 with only four musicals (they are only getting more expensive to produce), but I highly doubt we would see a season with less than seven plays any time soon.